Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Raven Crowking]

Ah, but only the right kind of game play creates it. Small deviations create huge balance flubs. A butterfly flaps its wings and an entire campaign goes down the tubes.

I never met a group that managed a balanced 1e/2e game in half a dozen years of trying.

I have seen both balanced and unbalanced play with both systems.

OTOH, I am not claiming that Gygaxian "balance" is easy to create, merely that it is substatially different than that meant when discussing "balance" in 3e or 4e.

 

[Scribble]

No, it is a statement of what balance IS.

Gygaxian balance is process-oriented, not end-state oriented. Outside of the process of the game, balance doesn't exist. There is no end-state balance. This is why "Game balance is really broader than the options allowed for on the poll."

All games are balanced through process based means. It's just a statement really that all players by default exist within a set of fair rules.

This doesn't imply that all the processes are the same (they're definitely not) nor does it imply that one process is better then another (that's personal preference.)

No matter what your process though, it doesn't change the definition of balance. (Fairness throughout the rules basically)

To think it does is absurd: It's like saying that because a helicopter and an airplane use a different process to achieve flight, that somehow the definition of flight is different- it's not; flight is flight.

Gygax's idea of how a game should be balanced is different then the current designers ideas, sure- and one can argue whether either designer achieves his goals or not sure, but in either case the point remains the same, the games were designed with balance in mind.

If one reads Gygax's advice to players in the 1e PHB, or in KotB, or the similar advice found in modules like B1, it becomes clear that the players in any given milieu share a large burden in maintaining "game balance" both on the basis of the choices made in play, and in preparing for play (including both character generation/selection and equipment selection).

This is true in just about any game.

The DM is deliberately presenting an environment that attempts to trick the players into unbalanced play. Superior players will not take the bait, or, better yet, will manage to discover ways to "defeat" the "unbalanced" encounters.

Again you can do this in any game. I regularly present challenges that are out of "balance" to my players in my games. All you're doing is taking a balanced game and presenting the option to unbalance it.

This is, in Gygaxian terms, what "superior play" is.

Cool, his play style prefers presenting unbalanced choices. Right on.

In Gygaxian terms, balance is what good play falls into....treading the narrow line between "too easy" and "too hard" on the basis not of the DM setting up the world to make this line all there is, but on the basis of the players being skilled and canny enough to recognize the line and walk it with care.

This doesn't have anything to do with the design of the game, only the play style. The game itself was designed to be balanced, but the players can (and in his opinion should) let it become unbalanced or balanced based on their choices, and play style. (This matches my opinion as well.)

Balance is a tool, same as it always was.

The argument can be made that the current designers are promoting a way of using balance that is different then Gygax preferred sure- but that's a different thread.

 

[Scribble]

Another way to look at it is that WotC balance is an inherent property that, quite often, doesn't survive actual game play, whereas Gygaxian balance is an emergent property that doesn't exist until game play creates it.


RC

If you want to argue that- sure, that's fine, but it still doesn't change the fact that balance = balance, no matter whether it's created at start, or intended to be created in play. You're still striving for balance.

(I disagree btw; as stated above. I think he strove for a balanced system, but intended for the players of the game to maintain/disregard balance during play based on what they found fun.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

Believe what you will.

We can agree to disagree.

 

[ExploderWizard]

But his game was so very clearly not balanced that way in and of itself. He might have intended for the DM to make that happen, but since a DM was not included in any box set I ever saw, relying on DM adjudication was a fools errand. Incidentally, the vision of some sort of Gygaxian Mini-me packed in each box is making me chortle with glee.

It just makes sense to standardize under those conditions, and since the single largest sources of variance were DM skill and fiddly rules, you standardize the fiddly rules and obviate the need for as much DM adjudication.

A roleplaying game cannot be balanced in an of itself. The play of the game, and thus the balance of that play including aspects of the "rules" require meaningful contributions by the participants. Diminishing the value of those contributions will not bring a magical balance to the game. No matter how much autopilot balance is attempted, it will never be perfected as long as the participants in the game remain a variable. This is proven time and time again as players discover new and unforseen ways to abuse the system. This is followed by a decree that X is now broken and needs to be fixed. X is then fixed with a loophole plug which causes Y to suddenly malfunction. Even computer games which try to mechanically balance with precision need constant adjustment for every tiny new element that gets added.

Lets assume that a system can indeed have all of the imbalances worked out of it. This would ultimately mean that anyone playing the game really wouldn't matter. Is this something we really want?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Lets assume that a system can indeed have all of the imbalances worked out of it. This would ultimately mean that anyone playing the game really wouldn't matter. Is this something we really want?

Not at all.

Human beings will always alter the conditions. That is our nature.

But I think the latter day way of balancing works better for me. I think the experience from table to table is more consistent. For me and the people I played with, 1e/2e simply put too many decisions that impacted everyone's fun in the hands of one guy. There was no continuity at all from game to game because interpretation was a stronger force than the written rules.

This is my opinion, obviously, but it felt like those rule sets were not definitive, just sort of connotative. As a kid, that definitely didn't work. YMMV, and probably did. I haven't played it as an adult. I imagine it would work better. If nothing else, I trust more of the people I know now not to let the "DM hat" go to their head.

I'm guessing, however, that part of the reason for the changes to "DM empowerment" and rigid rules is that many of the designers had experiences similar to mine, because the changes they made drastically curtailed the corner cases that flubbed my groups up as kids.

 

[Ariosto]

No, RC, "Game balance is the result of player choices and player skill interacting with the milieu," is not a definition of game balance.

"Gymnastic balance is the result of gymnast choices and gymnast skill interacting with the milieu." True enough, but as true for a clumsy dismount or accidental fall -- what we would call lack of balance -- as for a polished performance. Not every possible result is "balance".

 

[dougmander]

I voted "other." The strongest mechanism for balance in 1e is the tension between DM fiat and the right of players to vote with their feet if they don't feel the DM is fair.

 

[Ariosto]

Power and utility of different classes, even by the RAW, is radically different at any given time point, and the aggregate of a typical campaign will vary tremendously with how much time you spend at certain character levels, accidents of loot distribution, or any number of other factors.

... and from character to character of the same class, as one of 9th level is different from one of 3rd level. People seem to forget that aspect quite a lot, no doubt because they play games in which Bobby and Joe and Bobby Joe somehow always advance together in lockstep no matter what -- so "the campaign" can be spoken of as being "at level X".

Scribble: You seem to suggest either that 3e runs itself, not requiring implementation by a DM -- Oh, if only it were so! -- or that 1e does not present guidance to the DM. If you mean merely that the guidance is in your opinion inadequate, then so be it, but that is not at all the same as the game not being designed for game balance.

I regularly present challenges that are out of "balance" to my players in my games. All you're doing is taking a balanced game and presenting the option to unbalance it.

Let's not get too slippery here. If I make a bad move in chess, then the "game" in the sense of that particular instance of play may be said to become "unbalanced" in the sense that I have granted my opponent an advantage. That is not at all the same thing as calling The Game of Chess unbalanced ... unless you're using some newfangled notion of game balance!

If, for instance, you consider equality of opportunity insufficient; if you insist on equality among outcomes; then your "balance" utterly negates the possibility of what would normally be considered game balance.

 

[Scribble]

Scribble: You seem to suggest either that 3e runs itself, not requiring implementation by a DM -- Oh, if only it were so! -- or that 1e does not present guidance to the DM. If you mean merely that the guidance is in your opinion inadequate, then so be it, but that is not at all the same as the game not being designed for game balance.

I think you have me confused with someone else? When did I indicate that 3e ran itself in some way. It most certainly did not.

I also never said either game wasn't designed with balance in mind... The opposite actually.

I'm a bit confused on this one...

Let's not get too slippery here. If I make a bad move in chess, then the "game" in the sense of that particular instance of play may be said to become "unbalanced" in the sense that I have granted my opponent an advantage. That is not at all the same thing as calling The Game of Chess unbalanced ... unless you're using some newfangled notion of game balance!

Right... but that's not what I'm talking about.

If, for instance, you consider equality of opportunity insufficient; if you insist on equality among outcomes; then your "balance" utterly negates the possibility of what would normally be considered game balance.

Balance for me in a game system is akin to when I got my new LCD tv. The manufacturer has several "optimal" settings for things like brightness, color balance, contrast, etc.

Awesome. Under an optimal viewing experience this is what would look the "best."

Despite how hard I try though, my living room is not the optimal viewing setting. I have un color balanced lights in weird places, I can't adjust how much light they output, I have things like windows, my position on the couch is not the perfect spot, etc... Plus my own personal tastes ( I tend to like the brightness slightly higher then others might.)

So I adjust from there. The manufacturer's optimal settings are a starting point.

Same with a game for me. I look at the game and it tells me under "perfect" conditions this is a balanced game. I adjust as needed for optimal fun.